07:23 pm - Will Self and the epiphenomenal imbroglioI didn't get to watch Newsnight on Friday, with Will Self and Steve Coogan both excelling in their different ways. This article by Will Self seems to be a working-up of his comments from Friday. The prose is of the ripest cheese, and I love it. Self is like 'Yeah, what you going to do about it?'

The unholy triple alliance between media, the political class and the police may be characterised as a merely epiphenomenal imbroglio... A tectonic shift is taking place in our culture, namely the transition from a print/broadcast era... (to one in which) everyone swims about in a protoplasmic gloop of titillating supposition... (and we are currently) in a strange interregnum between cultural hegemonies

I am not sure people (eg in the comments which follow) realise that Self is playing this for laughs. I think it's a hoot. And of course, he also means every word.

ETA I like this comment 'if traditional media/power relations are in their death throes as Mr Self asserts, then at least the dictionary business has a safe future'

Yes, thanks, that's really fascinating. Interesting to read how he got his X-Files gig. “I pitched them an idea about a guy whose shadow comes to life and sucks people in like a black hole and kills them,”

I think he had no chance any more, so he had to give up. I am not sure about Brooks - what is the appeal? Some people cynically say sex, others that she has secret knowledge. I can't believe it's just quasi-paternal feeling, because he isn't particularly nice to his own kids.